8WP

Today after a long day which included sitting on the motorway for the better part of two hours to visit Nana, I was in the stupidmarket shoe-less (blister from my heels) getting zucchini (which they didn’t bloody have – my kingdom for a courgette!) when a woman looked at my bare feet sideways. Apparently I have no filter when I’m tired because I turned around and said ‘Normally by now I’d have my bra off too!’. Choice.

I have leg aches…. running up and down my thighs and shins…. It turns out I wasn’t as clean and green as I thought I was because I may be experiencing withdrawal symptoms….. although withdrawal from what?

But it’s not all bad – I finally paid off two of my laybys and got a little retail therapy rush. I actually think it was better than a sugar rush. And I don’t say that lightly friends. But it really is a special feeling. Or maybe I’m just shallow!

Anyhoo – take care of y’all, this feels like a long week, but we only have two days to go!

The mint Mojito smoothie for breakfast was goodish again – sort of like brushing my teeth with a spinach leaf. Minty and green. And you know what goes well with Mint Mojito smoothie? Bacon. That’s right. I followed my smoothie with a bacon chaser and it was the best breakfast in ages. I am trying to send the lads to school with full tummies and bacon sandwiches are a sure-fire way to get them to eat!

The boys are exhausted at the moment, poor lads. The start of the new term has really knocked Master 7 around – he is in ‘middle school’ now. He now wants to quit Ukelele because he’s too tired to do it after school and when I took him to watch the hip-hop class this evening to see if he wanted to join, he affected a very careful attitude of indifference. Drinking his smoothie and looking out the side of his face at the dancing kids, he really didn’t want to seem like he was keen. Poor little bugger. He’s not feeling very rock and roll right now.

Master 4 on the other hand seems to be on fire today! I picked him up and while he was looking for his shoes the teacher explained that he hadn’t been wearing underwear today. When questioned he had loudly and happily declared that ‘Mummy doesn’t know I’m freeballing today’. This from the child who refused to be naked AT ALL until halfway through last year. Now he wants to be naked all the time. And yes, freeballing. My boys like more air down there. A new word for the other kids to take home with them. I can just imagine the conversation around the dinner table. ‘Mummy can you please pour me a drink and are you freeballing?’

Add this to his adventure this afternoon; The grumpy Dutchman took him along with him to quote a new job this afternoon. This job is for a woman I do bootcamp with, who I like and want to remain friendly with, so it’d be good if the GD gets the work and we all play nice. They have a daughter the same age as Master 4 and an older ‘tweenage’ girl too. The GD comes out of one room after measuring up, with the man of the house to find their eldest girl bent double laughing in the hallway, listening to our lad and the little girl playing. It turns out that at some point during their impromptu playdate, Master four needed to use the bathroom and the wee lass obliged in showing him where to go. Naturally she stayed to watch as any good hostess would – I always offer to stay and wipe don’t you? Which prompted the question ‘Whats that?’ To which my boy replied ‘My willy, you don’t have one – you have a vagina’. He’s right you know. It took me ages to get him away from calling it a ‘china’ (and asking every woman he met to see if they had one – was a wee bit embarrassing to have to explain little old ladies that he wasn’t, in fact, enquiring after their crockery). So. Small steps.

Anyway, I have resolved to try to get more fruit and veges in to the boys while they are adjusting to being back full-time – I made them smoothies after school today – theirs with full fat milk (as opposed to mine with almond milk) and we will be trying to get them to bed early and let them lie in when they can.

Today was a good food day for me though, my leftover chicken and basil pesto with ‘zoodles’ was good the next day, and I didn’t even notice the lack of snacking until I got home and opened my lunchbox for cleaning – still had my morning and afternoon tea in it! It’s totally weird to suddenly be a grrl who doesn’t eat ALL the time. Before this year I was a snacker, a grazer, a nibbler. Constantly looking for food whether hungry or not – but actually – usually hungry. That’s whats so weird. The hunger has gone – and I am not eating more really.

My specialist explained it and I sort of get it – She thinks that I have an intolerance to Dairy (on top of everything fucking other thing) and that eating Dairy was contributing to my need to eat all the time – that it was turning off my ‘satisfied’ switch in my gut and doing me damage at the same time. I’ve officially not eaten dairy for 48 days so maybe that is it? Also the IQS program reckon that quitting sugar helps with the mindless snacking too – the impulse is gone because you are eating lots of good fat and protein and greens.

Whatever it is, I like not being hungry all the time. I still find myself heading to the fridge out of boredom and grumpy/PMS/low/pissed off with the kids moments – but I’m way better now at recognising that and I am working on what to do instead of eating. ‘Blogging’ is helping ha ha.

Dinner tonight was ‘Baked fish on roasted Caponata’ care of IQS and it was good, behold;

YUM.

And like a dick I followed it up by mindlessly ‘finishing off’ the apple in Master 7’s lunchbox while I write this. Cue tummy ache. And….. there it is.

Thanks for reading guys my ‘stats’ tell me there are whole lot more of you now – so welcome! Talk amongst yourselves (but quietly cos’ I’m off to bed to curl up in pain).

Saucy huh? It’s taken me the better part of the evening to figure out how to do it, and I had to go through retrospectively to tag every post – and think of appropriate tags; ‘Prunes’ for example. That’s a good one.

The reason for my fancy techy pants this evening is the sharing – thanks for the blog sharing love guys. My clever friend Fee has suggested I have my own page on Facebook for me to share these posts too (partly so I don’t spam those that are not interested on my personal page) but also so you can find my posts if you wanna catch up. While I’m at it I will put in a plug for her page and business Shineon – she has some sweet new and vintage gears – check her out!

Today was the start of the clean green week with IQS, a mint mojito smoothie for breakfast which had me starving by 9am, luckily I had planned for this and had a lemon protein ball to take the edge off. Just another manic Monday.

I took Master 7 to school today so I could meet his teacher; new dude teacher, Master 7 is exhausted and I was worried that he didn’t ‘get’ my special little flower. Of course Master 7 was embarrassed that I was there, but he showed me his cute little table and cute little bag hook. He tolerated a cuddle before I left but wouldn’t look at me the whole time. So awkward. (Mwaahaha evil Mum laugh).

I then ran home, past all the slow I-don’t-have-to-work-because-hubby’s-a-surgeon walkers (get out of the fucking way!), jumped in the car and sped off to work, arriving just in time to run to my office and realise I didn’t have my work keys. And that was how my day went really – running to the next thing, teaching in between meetings, lunch at my desk and running for the rest of the day. SUCH a relief to leave today.

Dinner was actually really nice – my homemade pesto with poached chicken and courgette ‘noodles’. I know. So HOT right now to have noodles that are actually just lengthways sliced veges. I am down bitches.

Clean green week is meant to be a ‘detox’ week because you cut out coffee and gluten (been there, done that y’all) and upsize the leafy greens portions. They also recommend a heap of supplements, and spirulina etc. Because I am not great with raw food, and currently have no money (you can ask the grumpy Dutchman about that – Didn’t he go to a stag do on the weekend you say? Why yes, yes he did) I will be playing it by ear. Will keep you updated!

Sunday prep day. Due to the GD’s extended outing this weekend (read; he was extra late home after his birthday/Stag Do weekend partying and I was pissed) I had extra time at home to get prepped for the week ahead. This led to two cabin-feverish wee lads following me around all weekend, but we did manage to squeeze in a couple of shambles around the neighbourhood. Also I managed to convince the youngest that he needed to get a ‘birthday party’ haircut before he could go to his friends party and both boys now have short backs and sides thanks to me and my clippers – they look so straight edge now – so cutie cute.

But I digress. The point of this post was the prepping. Last week I wasn’t so great with the food – giving myself a sore tummy on more than one occasion when I got stuck hungry or hangry with no good food for my gut nearby. The IQS program called for homemade Basil Pesto and Lemon Protein Balls. I liked the no cook aspect – just needed my food processor. I needed four cups of basil for the Basil Pesto and I had optimistically not bought any so I stripped our three plants and only came up with three cups. I used one cup of coriander and it turned out sweet as bro. I am dairy free so no Parmesan of course – I swapped in Nutritional yeast and it still tastes Pesto-ey. All good. The Lemon balls are an acquired taste but they are sweet enough without having any sugar in them – I think it def depends on your protein powder – and I am not sure how I feel about protein powder to be honest…

I also cooked Falafels, boiled eggs, baked muffins for the fam and grandies and made chicken soup for the freezer (emergency lunches).

So I am feeling pretty prepared for the week. I have a ‘mint mojito smoothie’ to look forward to for breakfast care of the iQS program (we are heading in to ‘clean week’ apparently where things will get lean and green – I will have to watch out for the raw factor and adjust accordingly).

I hope you are prepared for the week ahead and rested after your weekend, have a good one x

Picture in your mind’s eye a woman sitting on her couch. She has her eyes firmly on her laptop, one arm stroking the cat (who, in the absence of the male human has deigned to purr for the female), the other scrolling through her newsfeed.

Notice the lollies strewn all over lounge the floor in front of her. Casualties in a day that included both a child’s birthday party and visiting multiple Grandparents, the children had their fill – they couldn’t take any more sugar.

Now look closer; at her tense shoulders. Her fixed gaze – her eyes don’t stray from the laptop screen. She is stroking the cat in firm, fast downward movements, more of a ‘sports massage’ than an affectionate thing. The chicken soup she made earlier is cooling next to her – too hot to eat yet but she tries it every few minutes or so.

The lollies – fruit bursts, minties, milkshakes and jellybeans – are ALL gluten free. This she knows. Sugar is the issue here. They are strictly a no go area. And yet…

Being gluten free is not a choice. Coeliac disease is a permanent, autoimmune disorder caused by an intolerance to gluten which is found in wheat, barley, oats and rye. This intolerance to gluten causes the body to produce antibodies which damage the lining of the small bowel and make it impossible for the body to absorb vitamins, minerals and other nutrients from food. The damage is immediate and can be severe in it’s physical manifestation. Because I am a silent coeliac I often don’t know it’s happening.

Giving up sugar on the other hand was a choice, to help my gut, to heal my gut and to ‘un-complicate’ this process. I know that high fructose fruit and veges are doing me damage as well and feel the effects straight away – and yet…

It has been a good day. But sometimes homemade chicken soup doesn’t quite cut it you know?

You know that feeling of dread that starts to creep over you as lunchtime draws near on Sunday and you realise that you have to go to work tomorrow and you need to squeeze the joy and relaxation out of every second of your remaining time or the day will be wasted. Fucked. No point in having gotten out of bed at all. And you spend most of the time trying to have FUN and RELAX and taking advantage of your FREE time so you end up being grumpy and irritable with the world because it’s not being perfect? Or is that just me?

I find the best thing to do is to fill up my day getting as best prepared for the week ahead as possible. Not school work – I can’t think about that at home without being asked to look at something, wipe something, judge something, put something in his room for being a dick, feed something – you get the picture. But if I can food shop for the week and get all my food prepared then I can take some of the day-to-day stress out of my working week. And I like making new recipes and getting stuff ready.

Also I like to start the day with an early morning walk. Grab the day by the short curlies. Get out there before shit happens so I can be in charge of what shit happens at what time. The grumpy Dutchman made the mistake of suggesting we walk Arty in the morning and consequently me and the lads were raring to go at sparrows fart and poor old daddy was still trying to pull the duvet over his head. But seriously, it’s so nice out there before the world wakes up; the sun rising and the beautiful light that accompanies it, the birds crapping on about shit at the top of their lungs, the smell of damp grass and Arty’s little ‘pauses’. Idyllic.

‘Coco-nutty granola’ Coconut flakes, nuts, cinnamon and coconut oil.

Today was prep day so I made a bunch of stuff. Boiled half a dozen eggs for snacks (they will last for up to 5 days in the fridge), Made Sarah Wilson’s ‘Coco-nutty granola’ for my breakfasts as per the iQS program, I tried out the iQS Peach crumble, and made roast chicken and veges for dinner and my lunch tomorrow. I wanted to try coconut yoghurt too (gluten and dairy free but it does have Stevia in it) IT IS FUCKING AMAZING. I got ‘Coyo’ chocolate flavoured because they didn’t have any natural (no really). And oh my god. Made my month. I am going to try to track down the natural flavour at Harvest – but maybe after I get paid because apparently everything I can eat is really fucking expensive.

I came across this piece of writing today and it was an interesting read. This concept of ‘Orthorexia [that] differs from other forms of disorders in that the obsessive focus is not on how much or how little one consumes, but the perceived virtue of the food itself.‘ resonated with me. She talks about how these (usually young, attractive – gotta be wealthy – women) get so fixated on where their food is coming from and its relative merits that they end up having very little they actually allow themselves to eat and become quite unhealthy as a result. Total first world problems of course. And thankfully she makes a distinction between those with allergies or auto-immune diseases (me) and those who choose to not eat certain foods in pursuit of real or imagined health benefits.

It contrasted nicely with a conversation that me and the lads had where they were asking about me eating gluten-free and what I wanted to eat and of course I listed off all the delicious things I haven’t eaten in two years – lemon meringue pie, neenish tarts, sourdough bread, fruit mince tarts oh drool….. Frankly if I was choosing to eat gluten-free I would be shit at it. I’d be all ‘one little pie won’t hurt’… every fucking day.

But read it and tell me what you think. The fact that it’s got a name seems a bit extreme but the author raises lots of good points; that a lot of the advice given in fact is dangerous and the way these diets are sold are very persuasive.

Anyhoo – I am sorted for tomorrow. Hope y’all are prepped for the week too!

I am tired man. Two full days of work and I’m shattered. I got home and immediately wanted to pick at sugary snacks. I had some Kombucha tea left in the fridge – but I have fallen in to the trap of thinking that because it’s the latest ‘health fix-all’ that it will be good for me – nope. 10mg of sugar. That’s heaps! So that’s out. Luckily – and I say this sincerely – there was nothing in the house that could break my resolve. I did eye the Nutella up. I spent many a good night with a jar of Nutella and a spoon believe me! But it is not Gf so it’s out and to be honest it wasn’t that tempting.

So the plan is to focus on the good things that happened today, feel tired, and go to bed early. Lot’s of good things happened in the last two days;

I finally figured out how to add another page to my blog. (Actually Kylee showed me – she’s way more bloggy than me – thanks Kylee!)

I have seen a big bunch of my girls today; feeling positive and looking forward to starting the year.

I got to cuddle a beautiful two week old baby boy. Nawwww baby snuggles.

It is nice to see all of my work colleagues looking so refreshed and relaxed as we start the year. All summer tans and smiles.

Boot camp was good this morning – and it was great to watch the sun rise.